It costs an average of $6,000 per person per year in federal, state, and local taxes to cover the government’s share of our national health care bill. The three levels of government pay about 71%, or roughly $1.8 trillion, of our nation’s annual health expenditures. It is no wonder that most rational people want policymakers to do more to bring these costs under control. Policy leaders talk all the time about controlling health care expenditures. This would help. But if we actually want to reduce costs significantly, we have to invest in prevention and public health. This is a position I’ve pushed in the past. All it takes to understand why is to recognize that prevention and public health have been responsible for half of our increased life expectancy during the past century while absorbing less than 5% of our overall health spending. This is old health policy news. So why aren’t policymakers doing more in prevention? The ans...
An occasional column focusing on federal, state, and local health policy